Search Engine Optimization, also known as, SEO.

Almost everyone is a user of the Google search engine. This web browser has dominated the world of web browsers and millions of people is looking for information all around the globe at this moment, on Google!

You are not the only one looking for similar information. In fact, thousands of us are scrolling through that first page of Google search result. Most of us won’t bother clicking the very next page of that result.

Ever wonder about these results Google provided for you? What makes them appear before any other search results?

That would be the Search Engine Optimization, also known as, SEO.

So, you just put your business online. You thought all you need to do is just create a website and you are done. Over time, you realized no one visited your page and most probably, it’s because they couldn’t find your website. In the end, you want to hire someone who could help you generate visitors, or in this case, web traffic to your website.

Before you even think about hiring an SEO agent to help you optimize your site, know about SEO first. The process needs to be transparent to you because it is not as hard as you think. In fact, you might have even done it unknowingly before. What’s more, it is a free traffic method.

In here, you will learn about SEO and its relevance to your business trafficking rate, a special step-by-step on how to optimize your business online using SEO, and finally, SEO’s potential in your business’ future.

Time for you to meet your optimization friend, the SEO.

SEO is a form of action or process to generate traffic from the ‘organic’ or ‘natural’ results of your search engines.

Organic’ or ‘natural’ results are unpaid search results based on the
relevance or ‘hit’ of your search. These results are determined by Google’s search algorithm to detect the site most optimized to their criteria, and your search. Sometimes, you can even see snippets, as Google calls it, from an optimized site.
What is the algorithm behind Google search for SEO you ask? We will uncover that during our special step-by-step on how to optimize your site.

For now, here’s a better picture of these ‘organic’ search results.

Say for example, you look up in Google browser on ‘how to publish your own book’ or simply ‘publish your book’. You will see up to 10 search results from the first page.

As you can see, the first 4 results have ‘Ad’ labeled besides their link. These are paid traffic ads, or simply ‘non-organic’ result. Further down, as mentioned before, you may even see snippets linked to a site.

According to Google, snippets are programmed to extract a portion of what users would see on your site. This featured snippet helps boost the users’ attention to your site. This is what most online marketers are aiming for because it lasted longer than paid traffic ads. A recognized page by Google as a form of organic search results, and it is all thanks to SEO.

For example, this snippet from Lulu.com on ‘Publish your book in six easy steps’. The information given is just a gist of what this website is offering and it successfully grabs users’ attention. Clicking this link would add traffic to Lulu.com.

Most online marketers and online business owners would love to see their products or services to be in the very first page of Google’s search result, or even better, the featured snippets. Who doesn’t? That would mean your page is successfully optimized to grab Google’s ‘attention’ and put them on top of their search list. The clicks you received from users are all that matters. Their clicks are your traffic.

Research shows that 70% of Google users wouldn’t even click the second page of their search results. If they can’t find it in the first page, they would retype their search using different relevant keywords. Thus, the cycle continues.

Let’s do a small recap of SEO. As mentioned, it is a process of getting that unpaid organic result from your browser, in this case Google search.

These search results are driven by Google’s complex search algorithm or criteria to be ‘found’ by users. Given your website is search engine optimized of course.

SEO allows online businesses to thrive by generating audience, or traffic, using the users’ click. The more clicks you receive, more traffic will be generated to your site. To do so, you will need an effective optimization.

Effective steps to fully optimize your site to generate traffic you desire.

First of, ask yourself, “What exactly are you trying to optimize?” or if you have tried SEO before and it didn’t produced results, “What should have been optimized?”

Identifying exactly what you, not anyone else, but what you want, is important to get traffic. Because those optimization options will be converted into keywords, phrases, tags and even categories that in turn, will be your most important ally in SEO.

Remember how Google has a search algorithm? Experts have been trying to crack the code of Google’s ideal optimization search, and they concluded that it is truly a peculiar process.

Sure, there’s more than just Google as your web browser of choice, but Google is strongly monopolizing the browsing game. Statistically, most online marketers are aiming for Google’s search recognition.

Some of them goes to the extent of researching Google’s search ranking process, and they’ve managed to discover two agents that influence its tracking system.

First agent that you will need to be familiarized with is the On-Site Optimization.

This agent is known as the process of ensuring that your own site, would achieve a certain recognition level by both search engines, and your viewers. The approach is direct. All you need to do is optimize your site, within the site itself.

How? You will need to ensure that put the right keywords, phrases, categories or even tags. Why? Well Google will need to know the subject matter of your site in order to steer it to the right search results.
I’ll give you an example.

Say you have a blog post in a common area known as, the WordPress. In it, you have a post that talks about ‘how to publish your own book’. The most important keyword lies in your title. Would you write your title differently?

Yes, you may, but, keep in mind that you will need to be directive and concise. Something like, “Publish Your Book In 30 Days” or “The Art Of Publishing Your Own Book”.

Similar keywords are maintained in both title, ‘publish book’.

When it comes to categorizing or tagging your post, you will need to reflect your title to fit with the subject matter. This would ease the ‘locating your site’ process by Google. This is one of the basic formulas you could easily solve within your site. All you need to do is to identify the words you want to optimize the most and do so, on-site.

Simply ‘Add New Category’ under the ‘Categories & Tags’ section.

Tags on the other hand, can be anything relating your post. It is mostly used to associate more specific keywords with your post. You can use words like, ‘publish’, ‘book’, ‘self-publish’ to name a few. Now, let us continue with the next agent.

Off-Site Optimization.

Off-Site Optimization is a process of ensuring your site achieves the highest rank using external approaches. Simply put, it is not optimized within your site. You will need other sites, multiple platforms to ‘steer’ Google into your main site.

By now, the ‘most important’ site, as ranked by Google, will be ‘announced’ as the highest-ranking site in a search result. You will see this site mostly in the very top 3 of your search result on the first page list. To be one of those sites, explore how Google evaluates the importance of a website. The key to Google’s ‘attention’ is through links.

You see, the more your links are being shared on multiple pages, the more ‘important’ you site will ‘look’ to Google. Take a look at this image. Your site is at the center and you have multiple sites, sharing or linking your site, in their site. Google will define this site, your site, as a presence of authority.

The formula sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Not quite, because your real challenge would be, “how many other sites are actually linking your site?” or, “do you have ample reliable content for users to consider linking it?”.

Most times, the perception of a site’s authority is regulated by the number of sites that are linking to it. When your link appears on a bigger platform and recognized blogs, it will ‘steer’ your site to rank higher in Google’s list.

For example, previously you have a post regarding, “The Art Of Publishing Your Book”. It is generating views using On-Site Optimization, however, your traffic is not meeting your expectations. So, you wanted to use the Off-Site Optimization agent by linking your main site to other platforms.

Most online businesses resolve this problem by creating multiple social network account. These social network giants such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr or even Snapchat are sometimes more efficient in driving traffic than your sole website.

This is because online users around the globe have at least 2 out of the previously mentioned social network account. You either create a page, a group or a profile dedicated solely to your business and start building it up, using content from your website.

This way, you are generating views by linking your main site to these platforms. Doing so, allows your links to be shared to users of these platforms. Your traffic will rise and slowly, your site will be presenting an authoritative figure to Google.

You & Your Traffic Generating Agents

What’s next between you and SEO as your traffic generating agent?

As you can see, the agents are there to assist you in achieving the traffic you want to your site. The more traffic you generate, the higher your site’s authority is perceived. There are 2 additional ways to implement On-Site and Off-Site Optimization.

Meet the White-Hat and Black-Hat of SEO. They are known as part of the implementation method for you to utilize On-Site and Off-Site Optimization.

White-Hat SEO

White-Hat SEO is the legal optimization vehicle to generate traffic to your website, whilst Black-Hat SEO isn’t. Despite the need to keep pulling traffic to your site, there are cases where desperate online users would opt for Black- Hat SEO.
White-Hat consists of building links of your site, and analyzing potential optimized keywords. Its objective is to increase the fame of your site through a relatively good content that is practical to be shared and link to. Thus, increasing your traffic slowly, but steadily.

Black-Hat SEO

Black-Hat, on the other hand, is none of that. Those who practices this is deemed guilty of breaking the rules set up by Google to achieve the highest ranking of searches. It is illegal and it can get your site to be penalized and potentially banned from the ranks of search engines.

The most important aspect of generating traffic using SEO is patience. No site can accelerate its rank within a day’s time, unless of course you pay for the service. Fret not because the key to a steady growth of traffic is consistency.

Consecutively, the words used to create your post should portray the chosen title. Always check wordings to your link and the reliability of your link. This eases other users who want to share your post to the world and bring you traffic.
Finally, do not leave your site stagnant even for a day. The least post you should be making is at least once a day. This would give you the reputation of consistency amongst readers, knowing they could rely on you for an update. Nobody likes a stagnant blog or page.

Keep in mind using the method of SEO takes time for your site to be recognized. Whether you integrate the On-Site and Off-Site agents, or both to help you out, the results you want might come in slower. All you need to do, is maintained your consistency from the above elements and you will do great.